Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (born June 19, 1947, Mumbai, India) is a major novelist in the English language. His most famous work, Midnight's Children, depicts the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in allegorical form. It won the Booker Prize for the best novel of the year by an author writing in English in a Commonwealth country or Ireland. It subsequently won the 'Booker of Bookers' for the best of the first 25 winners of the Booker Prize.
His later novel The Satanic Verses aroused controversy, angering many radical Muslims who believed that Rushdie's portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad (an illustration of a legend surrounding the prophet) was blasphemous. Rushdie's book tells the story of original instructions from Muhammad that the Muslim people should worship three ancient pagan goddesses that had been worshiped in Mecca before the time of Islam. According to the story, Muhammad later recanted the verses, saying that the devil had persuaded him to add them. In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran declared a fatwa on Rushdie, mandating his execution under Islamic law. Because of this, Rushdie was forced to live in fear for his life, under police protection for more than a decade.
Although Rushdie was born a Muslim, he has made public comments in support of atheism. That, combined with his largely liberal politics, means his writing should be approached with caution. After the terror attacks against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo he said: "Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms".[1] However Rushdie does not observe the danger of Militant atheism.
Rushdie was knighted in his adopted country, the United Kingdom, in June 2007. He also has American citizenship.
Stabbing
On Aug 12, 2022, an Arab-Muslim Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government was arrested after stabbing Salman Rushdie.[2] Described by eyewitnesses as viciously stabbing, repeatedly.[3]
Matar was charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault.[4]
Reaction to stabbing
Hadi Matar was immediately praised by pro Iran, Hezbollah as a Lebanese hero.[5]
Later on, Hezbollah Supporters Celebrate 'Holy Stabbing,'[6]
Iranian Newspaper praised Salman Rushdie's attacker.[7]
Activists accused Iran of responsibility for attack.[8] Adding "that a bounty of over 3 million dollars for Rushdie's life offered by Iran's 15 Khordad Foundation remains on offer."
On Hadi Matar
The Arab Islamist, born to Lebanese immigrants, expressed pro Shiite fanaticism, strong sympathy to the Iranian leader and IRGC,[2] Kassem Solemani.[9] In addition, Hadi Matar retweeted an image of a big knife and the words: "The knife, Zion," on May 5, 2022.[10]
Matar carried a fake driver's license in name of Hezbollah's most notorious figures was Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a CIA-linked assassination in Syria in 2008. [11]
References
- ↑ Stephanie Linning, "Salma Rushdie condemns Charlie Hebdo attack" ' Daily Mail online, 7 January 2015.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Joe Marino and Evan Simko-Bednarski, NJ man, Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government ID’d as suspect in Salman Rushdie stabbing, NYPost, August 12, 2022.
Hadi Matar, 24, was arrested after he stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York and allegedly stabbed the author in the neck.
- ↑ Salman Rushdie in surgery after being stabbed onstage; suspect arrested, AFP, Aug 13, 2022.
Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, told AFP he saw the suspect run onto the stage where Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."
- ↑ Paul P. Murphy, Aya Elamroussi, Nicki Brown, Samantha Beech, Liam Reilly and Ray Sanchez, Suspect in Salman Rushdie attack pleads not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges, attorney says, CNN, Aug 14, 2022.
- ↑ A 'Lebanese Hero': Iranian Outlet Praises Assailant Behind Attempted Murder of Novelist Salman Rushdie, Algemeiner, Aug 12, 2022
- ↑ "Hezbollah Supporters Celebrate 'Holy Stabbing' of Salman Rushdie", Asharq Al-Awsat, Aug 14, 2022.
- ↑ Iranian Newspaper Praises Salman Rushdie's Attacker, The Daily Beast, Aug 13, 2022.
- ↑ Activists accused Iran of responsibility for Rushdie attack, AFP, France 24. Aug 13, 2023.
While the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini over Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" has for some time not been part of daily discourse in Iran, the clerical leadership under his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also did nothing to indicate it no longer stood and on occasions underlined the decree was still valid. The multiple stabbing of Rushdie at an event in New York comes at an intensely sensitive time for Iran, as it considers an offer by world powers to revive the 2015 deal on its nuclear programme which would ease sanctions that have battered the economy. During a period of relative thaw between Tehran and the West under former president Mohammad Khatami, ex-foreign minister Kamal Kharazi had in 1998 pledged that Iran would not take steps to endanger the life of Rushdie, who for years was in hiding.
But an answer posted to a question on Khamenei's website Khamenei.ir in February 2017 said that the fatwa was still valid. "Answer: The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued," it said. The @khamenei_ir Twitter account, which repeats Khamenei's views and activists have repeatedly said should be suspended, in 2019 posted that the fatwa was "solid and irrevocable". Activists also insist that a bounty of over 3 million dollars for Rushdie's life offered by Iran's 15 Khordad Foundation remains on offer.
'Real Islamic republic'
“Whether today's assassination attempt was ordered directly by Tehran or not, it is almost certainly the result of 30 years of the regime's incitement to violence against this celebrated author," said the Washington-based National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI).
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group outlawed in Iran, said that the attack had taken place at the "instigation" of Khomeini's fatwa.
- ↑ Who is Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old who attacked Salman Rushdie?, FPJ in. Aug 13, 2022.
...expressed viewpoints sympathetic to the cause of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). Investigators reportedly found images of Iranian commander Qassem Solemani, who was assassinated in 2020, in a cell phone messaging app belonging to Matar.
- ↑ ACOM @ACOM_es:
The same Hafi Mayar who has tried to assassinate Salman Rushdie, with a Twitter profile (posting) king the killing of Jews, with constant proclamation in favor of Hezbollah, and with his album-groupie of Iranian financiers of terrorism. You didn't see it coming ? What's up? [1]
-- Aug 13, 2022.
(It was the day "Palestinian" terrorists with axes brutally attacked Haredim in Elad --who they know, mostly do not even serve in the army). - ↑ Andrea Cavallier and Emma James and Paul Farrell, Man, 24, who stabbed Salman Rushdie had fake driver's license in name of HEZBOLLAH commander and praised Iran's Revolutionary Guard on social media: Author is on ventilator, will likely lose an eye, his arm nerves are severed and his liver damaged, Daily Mail, Aug 13, 2022.